Tag: Fitness

The Decision Was Already Made

Yesterday was a long day.

I’m on vacation next week, and I have a mountain of work to get through before I leave the office on Friday. I was tired by the time I got home, and even more so after we all went to the baseball fields to play before walking back home to get the kids to bed.

But then I got changed, I grabbed my headphones, I walked out to the garage, and I started my workout.

And I realized something.

I didn’t even have to think about it.

I just did it.

I have spent the last couple of months trying to convince myself every night that I should go work out. I have spent the last couple of months telling myself that the casual walk around the neighborhood with the boys or taking them to the fields so they could run around counted as a workout and that I didn’t need to go lift weights.

But then a few nights ago, I made the choice to go out there. I had some outside motivation because I am now working with a personal trainer, but I still had to walk out the door and lift the weights for the first time in months. I was sore. It was so much harder than I remembered. But I did it.

Then I did it again the next night.

And the next.

And then last night, I didn’t have to convince myself. There wasn’t a negotiation with my recliner or a debate with the television.

The decision had already been made.

I was heading out to the garage to work out.

I’d like to say the decision was easy.

I’d like to say that weeks or months ago I decided I needed to get in better shape and simply started.

But that’s not what happened.

I’ve known for a long time that I needed to invest in myself physically, and yet I didn’t.

I chose to watch television after the kids went to bed.

I chose to go back for seconds at dinner.

I chose to have snacks when I wasn’t hungry.

And I made a thousand excuses for those choices.

I’m tired.

I’m stressed.

I’ll do it tomorrow.

Then I would regret the decision after it was already too late to change it.

So what changed?

For me, it was committing to a personal training program.

I committed to someone else that I would put in the work.

That person wasn’t my wife.

It wasn’t my kids.

It was a stranger I met on the internet.

I don’t know why that was the thing that finally mattered.

But I do know this:

I went from struggling to make the right choice when it came to food and exercise…

…to having a few days in a row where I didn’t even see a choice.

The decision had already been made.

I don’t know how to turn that into a lesson everyone else can apply because I think we all have different triggers—different non-negotiable reasons for finally doing something we couldn’t bring ourselves to do before.

Mine happened to be accountability to someone I had just met.

Yours will probably be something completely different.

What I do know is that I never stopped believing there had to be something that would eventually make it click.

Even while I was breaking promises to myself almost every day, I never stopped hoping that one day I wouldn’t.

Does that mean I have changed forever?

I don’t know.

I’ve lost the weight before.

I’ve put it all back on before.

History says that’s possible.

I can’t promise that I won’t fall back into old habits because I don’t have the track record to make that promise believable.

What I can promise is that I won’t stop remaining open to whatever helps me become the person I want to be.

Because sometimes the breakthrough isn’t something you can force.

Sometimes it arrives because you kept trying long enough to recognize it when it did.

My hope for you is that you don’t stop looking for—or remaining open to—that catalyst in your own life.

Whether it’s exercise.

Writing.

Repairing a relationship.

Battling addiction.

Or finally beginning the thing you’ve been putting off.

I hope you find the thing that finally makes keeping the promise feel more natural than breaking it.

The point isn’t to become someone who never struggles.

It’s to slowly become someone who no longer has to negotiate with themselves every time.

Because eventually, the decision isn’t about who you could be.

It’s about who you are.

Continue the Journey

If this article resonated with you, here are a few more reflections that continue the conversation:

The Coach Can’t Do The Work

I am going to be starting a personal training program in the next week or so, and yesterday I had my first call with my trainer. Being honest, I was nervous. I had never worked with a personal trainer before, but the conversation was great and also a little unexpected. Instead of just talking about exercises and nutrition, we talked about my goals, the habits I want to build, the mental aspect of getting healthier, my history with weight, and what I hope to achieve in the future.

As exciting as the call was, and as motivated as I am to work with this trainer, I’m still the one who has to put in the work. That’s something I’ve struggled with my whole life when it comes to my health.

The trainer can write my workouts, answer my questions, help keep me accountable, and encourage me when I’m frustrated. But he can’t lift the weights for me. He can’t choose what I eat every day. He can’t walk the steps I need to walk. He can’t say no to the junk food or turn off the TV so I can go work out. He can be a guide, but I still have to choose to follow.

I’ve done it before. In what feels like a past life, I lost 170 pounds. I was determined. I was resilient. Then I wasn’t. Some of the weight came back, and with it came frustration and disappointment.

Since then, I’ve read books about motivation and discipline. I’ve listened to podcasts. I’ve watched countless videos. I know what it takes to get back to where I want to be.

Information has never been the problem.

Turning that information into action has.

Often we think success comes from the tools we use along the way. The right pen or computer will help us write more. The right planner will keep us organized. The right app will keep us on task. Maybe the right coach will finally help us reach our goals.

Those things absolutely help.

They make the path clearer.

But they can’t walk it for us.

This project has never been about finally discovering the secret that erased years of failure. There isn’t one.

The progress I’ve made has come from doing the work day after day. From refusing to quit when things got hard. From not accepting defeat when I fell behind. From allowing the process to evolve instead of abandoning it because I was too stubborn to change.

The tools I’ve chosen have helped me get this far, but they aren’t the reason I’m here.

This trainer will be no different.

He gets to be on my team. He gets to challenge me, encourage me, and help me decide what I need to do to reach my goals.

But I still have to do the work.

The tools you use can help you write. They can help you stay organized. They can help you stay on task.

But if you don’t do the work, the tools can’t do it for you.

A coach, a trainer, or an accountability partner can all cheer you on. They can believe in you, even on the days you don’t believe in yourself.

But when it’s time to do the work…

You’re the one who has to do it.

And when you do, you’ll have something no one can ever take away from you:

The satisfaction of knowing you earned it.

Continue the Journey:

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The Scale Isn’t The Scoreboard

Yesterday I stepped on the scale and it had gone up again.

I launched The Young Napoleon Project twenty-eight days ago and had only managed to lose one pound.

But instead of getting frustrated, I got honest with myself about what had actually been happening over the last four weeks.

When I think about it, my diet really hasn’t been all that great.

There have been family barbecues, birthday parties, Papa Pandas events, Father’s Day, ice cream date with the family, milkshakes after a rough day, and takeout when making dinner just wasn’t going to happen. If I’m being completely honest, I’m not surprised that I’ve only lost a pound.

What does surprise me is everything else that has happened over those same twenty-eight days.

I’ve written and published twenty-eight blog posts.

I’ve averaged more than 11,000 steps a day, reaching my 10,000-step goal on all but four days.

I’ve completed more than 400 push-ups, sit-ups, and squats simply by adding one repetition every day.

I’ve read nearly 800 pages by committing to just twenty-five pages a day.

I’ve built systems that help hold me accountable instead of relying on motivation alone.

I’ve taken the boys on walks, to the baseball fields, to the zoo, on family hikes, and on coffee shop dates.

I’ve built habits that I’m consistently tracking, and maybe the biggest accomplishment of all is that this project has now lasted longer than any previous attempt because The Reset Never Came.

The scale can only measure one aspect of my life.

That’s why it isn’t the scoreboard for this project—or for the man I’m trying to become.

Imagine if I had lost forty pounds this month…

…but I hadn’t done any writing.

I hadn’t read a single page.

I hadn’t built this project.

I hadn’t played catch with Brooks, gone swimming with Joseph, or spent evenings walking with my family because I was consumed with calories, macronutrients, workouts, and the next number on the scale.

Would that really have been a successful month?

I don’t think so.

Because I’ve lived that version of success before.

Years ago, I lost the weight.

I reached my goal.

But I did it in a way that wasn’t healthy for me physically or mentally. I restricted myself so much that life stopped being enjoyable. I exercised so intensely that I hurt almost every hour of every day.

The number on the scale went down.

But so did the quality of my life.

When I restarted this journey, I promised myself it would be different.

This time I wasn’t just trying to lose weight.

I was trying to build a sustainable life.

A way of eating that allows me to enjoy birthdays and family dinners without giving up on my goals.

An exercise routine that gives me the energy to coach my boys’ baseball teams instead of leaving me too exhausted to play catch in the backyard, something I wrote about recently in Playing Catch.

A lifestyle that lets me write every morning, read every day, be present with Jillian and the boys, and still become healthier over time.

That’s what victory looks like now.

Not just the number on the scale.

I’m not saying losing weight isn’t important.

It is.

I need to lose the weight.

I’m not saying I don’t need to be more accountable with my diet.

I do.

And I’m certainly not saying the scale doesn’t matter.

Because it does.

It just isn’t the only thing that matters.

If you think about sports, baseball has a scoreboard.

But the scoreboard doesn’t tell you everything.

The best hitters in baseball fail seven out of every ten at-bats.

Teams that make the playoffs still lose dozens of games every season.

Yet those players still step into the batter’s box.

They still show up after losses.

They still give maximum effort.

The scoreboard doesn’t measure hustle.

It doesn’t measure the extra work that happens before anyone ever walks onto the field.

It simply records one part of a much bigger story.

The bathroom scale is exactly the same.

It measures my weight.

It doesn’t measure whether I’m becoming the husband I want to be.

It doesn’t measure whether I’m becoming the father I want to be.

It doesn’t measure whether I’m keeping promises to myself.

It doesn’t measure whether I’m building habits that my boys are watching every morning, something I reflected on in Little Eyes Are Always Watching.

It doesn’t measure whether I’m building a life I’m proud of.

So I’m going to keep stepping on the scale every morning.

I’ll celebrate when the number goes down.

I’ll honestly evaluate why it went up.

Then I’ll put it back under the bathroom sink and go live my life.

Because the scale isn’t the scoreboard I’m using anymore.

When this project is over, success won’t be determined by one number.

It will be determined by the life I built along the way.

Continue the Journey

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